(The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.)

In this edition, a video essay explains how the release of Top Gun on VHS ended up saving the home video industry. Plus, another video essay takes a look at how Zack Snyder‘s remake of Dawn of the Dead has all of the trademarks we’ve come to expect from the filmmaker, and singer Natasha Bedingfield gives Strangers Things the cheesy theme song it deserves. Read More »

Featuring a line up that includedDawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, RoboCop, A Clockwork Orange, Super, Wall-E and Serenity, the 3rd annual Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival was held this past weekend. Each film was accompanied by one or two prominent guests who all gave fascinating behind the scenes facts about their films as well as info on some upcoming projects.

It was a great weekend to be a fan of movies in Los Angeles and, after the jump, you can read dozens and dozens of behind the scenes facts from all those movies as well as Zack Snyder‘s update on Man of Steel, Simon Pegg talking The World’s End and Star Trek 2, Peter Weller‘s feelings on a RoboCop remake, Malcom McDowell‘s thoughts on The Avengers, James Gunn‘s thoughs on the similarites between Super, Kick Ass and God Bless America, Andrew Stanton‘s statement on possible Pixar sequels and Nathan Fillion‘s casting choices for Uncharted. Read More »

The third annual Hero Complex Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times, is as star studded as ever. Taking place from May 18-21 at Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE Stadium 14, this year’s line up goes from zombies, to cult classics, animation and superheroes. It all begins withZack Snyder and Robert Kirkman presenting Dawn of the Dead followed by Edgar Wright and Shaun of the Dead. Saturday starts with a digitally remastered version of RoboCop with Peter Weller, A Clockwork Orange with a Malcolm McDowell Q&A and finally the hugely underrated Super with star Rainn Wilson. Then on Sunday, Andrew Stanton will present the Oscar-winning WALL-E, Nathan Fillion will present Serenity and finally there will be ‘An Evening With Stan Lee,’ which will feature a screening that is yet to be announced.

After the jump, find out how you can get tickets and more. Read More »

Does a double feature of Dawn of the Dead with Zack Snyder and Shaun of the Dead with Edgar Wright sound like a good night at out the movies? You bet it does, and we can exclusively announce that’s just the first night of the upcoming, third annual Hero Complex Film Festival presented by the Los Angeles Times. The festival will take place May 18-21 at Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE and the full announcement of the line up and ticket sales takes place at 10 a.m. April 25. Read more after the jump. Read More »

Mondo and the Alamo Drafthouse had their biggest event ever this weekend this weekend as 700 attendees piled onto buses and were escorted by police to the Highland Mall in Austin Texas for their ninth mystery screening: George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead. When the buses pulled in, 200 zombies attacked them, forcing the film goers to race into the mall to watch the movie. There the director introduced his 1978 masterpiece which was accompanied by an awesome, limited edition poster by Jeff Proctor.

It was an event that won’t soon be forgotten and, after the jump, you can see not only the poster, but photos and videos from the event that will help you relive the entire evening. What better way to start off you Halloween? Read More »

We post a fair amount of montages here on /Film, but this one’s extra special. Back in 1993, well before the days of Final Cut Pro, a 19-year-old Edgar Wright holed himself up in an editing suite for several weekends to put together this montage, “Gun Fetish.” The clips are pulled from VHS tapes, which explains the low quality. Even so, it’s apparent that Wright has an excellent sense of rhythm and timing, as well as real affection for the films he’d go on to reference and parody in work like Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Watch it after the jump. Be forewarned — the video is, as Wright puts it, “a little NSFW and spoiler heavy.”

As part of the screening put together in relation to the SXSW Title Design Competition, Ian Albinson from the website The Art of the Title Sequence put together a nice two and a half minute compendium of excellent film titles. (That features an occasional piece of television, too.) For any long-time film lover, this little video will probably elicit quite a few responses simply on the strength of the title cards on display. I queued several films to re-watch after exposure to just a few seconds of their titles.

The last time George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead went out for a reworking, pretty much the entire blogosphere shared my skepticism. Luckily, once Zack Snyder’s remake finally came out, most of us were satisfied that while he hadn’t ousted the original from it’s Best Zombie Movie Ever pedestal, he’d actually served up a film well worth caring about and taking seriously. Snyder even received great acclaim for the opening movement of the picture, and I can honestly say that I really love those first ten minutes or so in particular. Some controversy remained, however, primarily over Snyder’s decision to have his undead be fast runners, seemingly ignoring all common sense about what kinds of stress and strain a rotting corpse could take.

Now, MTV are planning to create a spin-off TV series licensed from the Romero film. Will they be going for the fast or slow zombies?

A video has popped up documenting the recent Monroeville Zombie Walk, an annual event celebrating the Pittsburgh town’s ties to George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead, the director’s classic cinematic ode equating mall culture to the undead. This year also saw a Monroeville citizen, one with a very personal connection to Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead, opening a zombie museum inside that very mall. Rather awesomely, it includes “a coffin, rigged with speakers and hydraulics, to experience a ride to a cemetery and burial” that can be experienced for a decaying three bucks U.S. Progress. The video contains a chat with the museum’s curator, as well as lots of decaying mall goers, and is posted below…

I just found out that two new worth-mentioning films have been added to Hulu: Zack Snyder‘s feature directorial debut, the 2004 remake of George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead, and Terry Gilliam‘s adaptation of the Hunter S Thompson novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Both are presented online for free (ad supported) for US readers embedded after the jump.